


Weave

by Anndy



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 12:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13031352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anndy/pseuds/Anndy
Summary: Spell by spell, the cloak is given life.





	Weave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jadesfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesfire/gifts).



In the beginning, there was a Fire Rat that fell through a dimensional portal.  
  
The Fire Rat was a highly magical creature, sought mostly for the wondrous properties of its talons and hide, that the more adventurous and less scrupulous sorcerers of Earth sometimes world-hopped to hunt.  
  
The peasant who found the wounded and confused creature wandering in the mountains didn’t know that, though. All he knew was that it had the rough shape and size of a yak, a beautiful coat of red fur, and seemed docile.  
  
He never regretted taking in the animal and nursing it back to health. It followed the peasant’s yak herd, and ate the same grass in the same quantities; its milk proved not only drinkable, but delicious as well, and the peasant’s family never sickened while the animal lived. In the summer, it shed its heavy winter fur. No doubt the material would have sold for a tremendous price, but the peasant lived far up in the mountains, where the nomads never visited. Besides, he who never could have afforded dye liked the thought of his family dressing like royalty.  
  
The peasant’s wife liked to sing as she worked. She sang as she spun the bright red wool, and she sang as she wove it into a garment fit for a king. In her mind’s eye she could see her son resplendent in red as he walked the mountain paths. The cloak she was making him would protect him from the coldest winds, she knew. She was putting all her art into its making; it would be the finest cloak in the entire world.

* * *

The young herdsman loved the mountain. He led the herd up to the high pastures in early spring and stayed there until almost the first snow. It wasn’t that he did not like the long winter months spent working with his family; but being up there felt different. The air seemed more crisp, the sky more blue. He felt like he could see to the farthest ends of the Earth; he felt like he could fall into the sky and float forever.  Nothing in the valley could compare to that feeling.  
  
There was a small cabin at the edge of the pasture for the herdsman’s use. He slept there at night, wrapped in his red cloak.  
  
The cloak had been in his family for generations. The herdsman’s grandmother claimed that it was not made of dyed yak fur, that it had come from a magical creature. She had seen it with her own two eyes, back when she had been a little girl. In the winter evenings, she would sit by the fireplace and tell stories of her childhood, and make up fanciful stories about the magical beast that had made a covenant with their family to bring them prosperity in exchange of shelter. The beast had been long dead of old age when the herdsman was born; the family had built a small shrine for it near the house. Never having seen it, he wasn’t sure it hadn’t actually been an ordinary yak with an unusual coloring. What he did know was that the cloak was softer and warmer than anything else he had ever slept in, and that was why it was given to the young men of the family whose task it was to stay in the high mountain with the herd.  
  
During the day, while the herd was grazing, he liked to roam the mountain. He never strayed too far; he was a dutiful young man, after all. But the mountain called to him. He would climb to interesting promontories and peek into eagles’ nests. He would crawl out onto outcroppings and gaze out over the valley, or a sea of clouds. He would pretend he could fly as he leapt over crevices, his cloak billowing out behind him, and that was the most intoxicating feeling he had ever experienced. Once or twice, he thought he had misjudged his jump, and feared he would fall to his death. But he must have been wrong after all; he never fell.  


* * *

The soldier muttered incantations and made esoteric hand movements over his comrade‘s cloak. "There. All done." He patted the fabric affectionately. "From now on, you’ll always be spotless. No dirt, mud, or blood will stick to you. Nor food stains either, but out here those are the least of your worries, right?"  
  
A disdainful snort came from the tent’s entrance, and the soldier shot a guilty look at the figure who had just entered. It wasn’t the cloak’s owner, he saw, but rather one of their tentmates, a surly fellow who kept to himself and watched everyone around him with a faint air of contempt. "And what do you think you’re doing?"  
  
"Enchanting Dawa’s cloak; what does it look like?" The soldier, a veteran of many campaigns, had a soft spot for the cloak’s absent owner, a young recruit fresh from the mountains who reminded him of the son he had left back home. "I have this spell from my grandmother. Best seamstress in the village, she was. She knew spells to make cloth waterproof, dye never to tarnish, even prevent rips! Took most of her secrets to the grave, but she made sure I knew this one. I was a messy child, you see. She thought my future wife would need all the help she could get." His clothes were, in fact, always spotless despite weeks spent on the march, as if by, well, magic. He smiled a little wistfully in fond reminiscence. It made his scarred face less fierce. "Anyway, it’s done. It shouldn’t wear off as long as the cloak exists. But please don’t tell Dawa I did this for him. You know how he gets when he thinks he’s being babied."  
  
The other man seemed unimpressed. "Tch. Your weak woman’s magic is wasted on this thing. Or perhaps I should say it fits only too well? A useless spell for a ratty cloak for an inconsequential boy. It’s protection from swords and arrows he needs, not from dirt."  
  
"I don’t see you volunteering your magic, O great learned one," the veteran shot back. "Could it be that you don’t have any?"  
  
"Fool! I know much more about magic than you and your grandmother combined ever did, and the will to use it for great things! I won’t be a simple soldier all my life. By the time this campaign is over, I’ll rule over both Yarlung and Zhangzhung, you’ll see. Or rather, _you_ might see, but your little friend won’t. He’ll stick out like a sore thumb if he insists on wearing bright red, all the enemy archers will target him, and when the sun sets tomorrow he’ll be food for crows, some scavenger will have his supposed priceless family heirloom for a trophy, and you’ll have wasted your pitiful magic for nothing."  
  
The soldier felt the sting of static shock from the hand still resting on the cloak just as his patience for this odd tirade ran out. He stood up to his full height to confront his comrade-in-arms. "Enough! He’ll be fine! He’ll be by my side, and there’s no safer place to be!"  
  
"Yes, I’m sure you’ll keep a very close eye on him, how else would you know where his body fell? I know you scour the battlefield for valuables after every battle; does your precious boy know you plan to steal his pretty cloak off his corpse?"  
  
"That's not why-" The soldier shouted, defensive. "I do it to support my family!"  
  
The argument came to an abrupt end then as the tent flap opened and someone stepped inside; it was the young recruit they were talking about. Had he overheard anything?  
  
If he had, he showed no sign of it. He went to sit, and motioned for his older friend to join him.  
  
"About tomorrow," the veteran said after an awkward silence. "It will be your first battle, right? You’ll do just fine, trust me. Just stay close to me, and tomorrow evening we’ll drink to celebrate our victory together."  
  
"As you say, friend," the recruit said, absently running his hand over the red cloak pooled between them. "But… should I die tomorrow… Will you make sure my possessions are returned to my little brother? I know it’s a lot to ask, but…"  
  
The soldier took this rare show of fear and vulnerability on the recruit’s part for the sign of great regard it was. "Don’t worry, I’d never steal from a friend. Especially a dead friend. Should you die, I’ll say a prayer for you, and tell your family you fought well when I bring them your things. But you shouldn’t lose sleep over it; you won’t fall to enemy weapon as long as I’m by your side."  
  
Reassured, the recruit wrapped his cloak around himself, and dozed until dawn under the watchful gaze of the veteran and, unnoticed by all, the envious gaze of the would-be world conqueror.  
  
*  
In the end, the soldier was right: it wasn’t an enemy’s weapon that killed the recruit.  


* * *

The dark sorcerer hovered above the pitifully small group of wizards that had gathered on the plateau. His cloak was billowing behind him despite the lack of wind, and he was cackling. This motley band that had gathered to try and stop his conquest was ten years too late. Their pathetic magic could do nothing against his might!  
  
And yet they tried, bombarding him with their weak spells until he was driven back to the edge of the ravine - uselessly, of course, his levitation spell was flawless. He had allowed them to drive him back here. He wished to toy with them, after all. His playacting did seem to embolden them, and one of them started bleating about his brother that the sorcerer had supposedly murdered. "-stabbed him in the back, and then stole his cloak!"  
  
Oh yes, the sorcerer thought, he did remember the brat’s brother after all. Back when he had been slumming it with the army in the hopes of using his mind control to influence the generals, there had been a recruit, one of his tentmates, who had caught his eye. Not for his intelligence or martial prowess (he had been a useless load from the moment he joined until the sorcerer plunged his knife into his heart), but for his magic cloak. Fire rat fur, covered in weak, artless household enchantments - a marvel completely wasted on such a peasant. He had taken the cloak for himself, and enchanted it with useful spells: protection from weapons, from fire, from magic, levitation, a spell to block unseen attacks aimed at his back…  
  
He had had it altered as well. He had ordered it enhanced with golden clasps and fine but discreet embroidery, and had it given a more fashionable cut, something befitting the future ruler of all Zhangzhung. He had never taken it off since that day.  
  
He laughed. How delightful! The idiot soldier had an idiot younger brother, who had spent a decade chasing the power to confront his brother’s killer, and in the end, he was still too weak! He would die here, with his stolen heirloom in sight, unable to even land a real hit on the thief!  
  
He laughed harder and used his magic to make the cloak billow more dramatically, for effect, even as he sent a lightning bolt at the boulder the foolish child was hiding behind.  
  
The whole fight was so exhilarating, he couldn’t stop laughing. But why did his throat feel like it was being constricted all of a sudden?  


* * *

"And sold! To the gentleman in the blue… suit."  
  
Twenty minutes after the gavel had hit the sound block, the gentleman in question exited Sotheby’s with his new purchase under one arm. He walked briskly down York Ave, then took a right turn toward 1st. The street he ended up on wasn’t 1st, and furthermore there was now a woman keeping pace with him when he had been alone a second before, but neither of these facts seemed to bother him.  
  
"Ten grand? I didn’t take you for such a connoisseur of-" The newcomer was leafing through the auction catalogue that had appeared in her hands out of seemingly thin air. "Aha, there it is. Of ‘9th century woven Tibetan textiles’."  
  
They made another right turn. They were now in Greenwich Village. The gentleman made a face as he took a firmer grip on his package which was now rattling slightly, as if its contents were trying to burst out. "You know as well as I do that this is a magical relic, Ancient One. In fact, if this isn’t the Cloak of Levitation of the Dark Sorcerer of Zhangzhung, I’ll eat my hat. I had to buy it, I couldn’t very well let it fall into the hands of a clueless collector! Look at how it’s reacting to us, it’s obvious the slightest amount of ambient magic would have awakened it, and then what?"  
  
"Oh, I wasn't criticizing. You found a long-lost artifact of great value. I agree that it doesn’t belong in the collection of someone who can’t appreciate its real worth." They had now arrived in front of the New York Sanctum. "Well," she said as the door opened at the flick of her hand, "shall we take a look at your new relic?"  
  
Once they were safely inside away from prying eyes, the Master of the Sanctum cut the strings holding the package closed. Its contents spilled onto the floor. They both watched the red cloak expectantly. Nothing happened for a beat. Then the cloak shook itself out, floated up to a man’s full height, and came to rest in front of them, as if awaiting instructions.  
  
"See? Exactly like it’s described in the old texts." The master started shooing the levitating cloak up the stairs.  
  
"Indeed. It’s magnificent. How such a motley collection of spells came together to give an ordinary object life - all these centuries, and magic still surprises me. Are you going to wear it?"  
  
It seemed not, for the master was now herding the cloak into an empty display cabinet. "Tempting as it is, I’d better not. The Cloak is said to be temperamental. It strangled its last wearer to death and then dropped his body down a ravine for good measure, so why would I risk it? There. It will be safe in here now."  
  
"You sure, Bill? You would look quite dashing in it!" The Ancient One yelled at the Master’s retreating back. "Don’t tempt me!"  He yelled back, laughing.  
  
She turned to look at the Cloak. It had gone into the cabinet willingly enough, but now it was drooping dejectedly. She shook her head. "Oh, don’t mind him. He’s always like that. Besides," she winked at it conspiratorially, "Red isn’t his color anyway. You should wait for someone who'll look good in you, eh?"


End file.
